Decent lorry drivers

allen

They get a lot of stick but today I was out and on 2 separate occasions lorry drivers were great. First time one let me through on a roundabout and then whilst climbing a hill he stayed back and when the way was clear to overtake moved right over to give me space. Very impressive ! They are not all the same !

redddraggon

Lorry drivers normally are pretty decent, and most know the limitations of their vehicles, it's van drivers that are a high %age of w@nkers.

willbevan

i do know what you mean, i have had a couple recently.

When i was riding from the old severn bridge to gloucester saturday, one lorry driver didn't pull out in front of me, and consiquently was stuck behind me for a bit, gave me plenty of space, when i foudn somewere (layby bit) to move over to and let him pass, tooted his horn to say thanks and waved.

Can be great, bt can be

CrookedCucumber

Hmmm... I would have agreed until tonight, when a lorry driver really did aim at me on a roundabout I've not noticed lorry drivers behaving like that until today.

saif

Redddraggon , I agree .. I have been bullied by Van drivers on several occasion , and once I was overtaken by a Fire Marshall van ( obviously not on Fire duty ) on a left turn , just managed to save myself from a disaster , all the other drivers behind me were horrified to see that bad behaviour.

markos1963

I agree lorry drivers on the whole are better than the average car driver, van drivers, well just don't get me started on that one! Was bullied from behind today through a village by a BMW reving his engine in annoyance even though it was a 20mph limit and I was doing 22mph, whats going on?

PostieJohn

I ALWAYS make a point of a secondary wave/gesture when an act of kindness has been shown to me.
Thinking about it, it's usualyy lorry drivers who have backed well off when we've approached roundabouts together.

redddraggon

markos1963 wrote:

Was bullied from behind today through a village by a BMW reving his engine in annoyance even though it was a 20mph limit and I was doing 22mph, whats going on?

I had the same last week, I was in primary position, descending a hill in primary position in a 30mph area, I was going 37mph, and some idiot still had to pass me (so I gave him an appropriate hand signal).

pyro_maniac

its easier to read the road ahead in a truck, you can see so much more up there, and as we are generally a lot slower then cars/vans it makes sense to hold back until we can see we can pass safely, we are not all arseholes

rossbarney2003

I have to agree that van drivers are the worst. I have come across a few really nice lorry drivers on the roads though, although one really scared me. He was right up my arse for ages even though there was plenty of room to pass, but he decided to overtake me on a small bridge with only room for one vehicle at a time. He hardly even moved out to pass me, but came back in quick enough that the back nearly squished me up against a wall. I was sooo shaken.......:(

sicrow

redddraggon wrote:

Lorry drivers normally are pretty decent, and most know the limitations of their vehicles, it's van drivers that are a high %age of w@nkers.

At the thought of sounding repetitive I agree and you can add that to 17 yr old tossers in zouped up vauxhall nova's with no exhaust etc

gkerr4

i think you often find that truck drivers have many different licences - car, motorcycle, HGV etc - which means they have an appreciation of other vehicles requirements of the road.

i think this is important as all the different vehicles have different requirements from the road - the best road position to be safe, the lines through corners, the lines through junctions and roundabouts - imo drivers that only stick with one type of vehicle miss this and assume that everyone needs the same from the road as themselves which doesn't help us at all.

I often see some courteous driving from truck-drivers - both on the bike and motorbike.

as said above - I always give a 'thank you' wave and / or thumbs up sign when this happens (same for any driver really) - they deserve to know that what they have just done is appreciated by us.

just my thoughts...

ricadus

http://www.theskip.net/the-skip-magazine/skip_hunks/

feel

I was on a cycle path yesterday and there was a white van driver parked across it waiting to turn right out of a lane. When he saw me he reversed so i did not have to stop or go behind him

there are no sweeping generalisations

suze

Yep Lorry drivers tend to be Ok and treat other road users pretty well. Mr Suze (a lorry driver) , tells me that they tend to try to anticipate the road much further ahead than the average driver, to try to keep moving even if it is slowly.

Generally he has a very laid back way when in his lorry.

He also rides a bike.

woody-som

lorry drivers are usually good, and even the boy racers are usually OK, the ones to watch I've found are mums with the 4x4 and the baby-on board sticker.

Anonymous

A van driver tried to scare me by pulling over to my side of the road as if he was going to run me over, he nearly did and in the process almost went into a tree at like 40mph :shock:

allen

pyro_maniac wrote:

its easier to read the road ahead in a truck, you can see so much more up there, and as we are generally a lot slower then cars/vans it makes sense to hold back until we can see we can pass safely, we are not all arseholes

The reason for my orginal posting ; )

jedster

IME artic drivers are, on average, the best on the road by some margin. Of course they do need to be...

The drivers that I am wary of are:

1. cement and skip trucks - these are heavy rigid vehicles, the drivers are often on tight timescales and can be quite aggressive, the wheels protrude and you can get sucked under

2. 17 year olds in chavved up novas etc - often their car control etc is fine but their road awareness is poor and risk appetite (I'll probably be alright overtaking on this blind bend") excessive

3. school run mums - sometimes distracted, often seem to lack the confidence to overtake then feel pressured to squeeze through at the wrong moment

4. cabbies - generally quite road aware and have decent skills but just tend to be a bit aggressive/leave very little room for things to go wrong

5. wvm - llike cabbies but less skilled

that's quite a long list isnt it?

Lucky Luke

A recent experience of mine from a few months ago was when I had pulled off the road to mend a flat (in the rain of course) , when a lorry went past me , pulled up and then proceeded to back up about 40 yards to where I was . Must be asking for directions I thought , oh no he only wound down his window to ask whether I had everything I needed and to ask if I wanted a lift to the next village !

Red Rock

I agree that lorry drivers are generally the best, together with emergency services (lots of friendly police, fire and ambulance crews out there) and drivers pulling caravans.

Worst for turning left on you seem to be women and businessmen (usually Audi or BMW) and as said, vans and cement/skip wagons aren't the best. Speeding drivers (both men and women) are the ones that scare me most.

I always thank drivers when they show some consideration, but I do shout w@nker at bad drivers from time to time (I'm trying to stop).

If I think I'm going to hold drivers up much I'll let them pass. This is mostly at road works or at the bottom of a hill where I'm waiting for traffic lights, I'll wave drivers past before I set off and all but the businessmen usually give a wave of appreciation.

Red Rock

Skindog

Best drivers on the planet IMO..

st68

mini skip lorry drivers are the biggest tossers :shock: